DOOM Episode V Doomsday
by Satyrkarma
Summary: Chapter Five in the classic space opera that should have been written by Dafydd ab Hugh and Brad Linaweaver...
1. Chapter 1

**1**

I tried to remember how I got here...although _here_ is a relative term because I don't even know where here is. _Here_ could be me dreaming and waiting to wake up from the longest nightmare imaginable or _here_ could be a quick trip back through time so I would have the pleasure of reliving the longest nightmare imaginable, or as a third and final alternative, _here_ could be my very soul sucked into an incredibly powerful computer program running at light speed, recording my actions for study and, as a funny byproduct, making my very thoughts become reality so long as I could lie myself into believing it was actually a memory. Don't even ask! As usual, I don't even know where to begin. Aliens, monsters, demons, whatever you want to call them came, stuff happened, 'nuff said. I could tell you my name is Sergeant Flynn Peter Taggart, formerly of Fox Company of the former Light Drop Infantry Regiment of the former United States Marine Corps...but I'm not even sure of that anymore.

I'm sort of a religious man. I say sort of because there's only so much faith one can have after battling a universe full of monsters invading one's home world and then find out that the _reason_ they came to destroy us is all part of some sort of interstellar chess game between two opponents that have been at war for six million years. Apparently, we were just a pawn in this game and the aliens didn't _really_ have anything against us except for the fact that we can die and they can't. Needless to say, the whole thing was very confusing. Ironically, at one point, it was only our faith (we being myself and the only other living human being who actually remembers the once great and proud nation called the United States of America, namely Arlene Sanders) that kept us from being turned into slaves of some cosmic evolutionary race who thought we were broken and wanted to fix us. Faith was the antidote to their biological infection if humanity.

In my opinion, I probably could've lived a normal life if it hadn't been for the last year (few centuries?) Arlene and I have spent gallivanting across the galaxy. We've gone from the swampy muck of battling the Scythe of Glory in Kefiristan which didn't exactly prepare us for the two-man war we waged against untold hordes of invading monsters on the moons of Mars. Then it was a giant leap back to Earth where we were joined by two brave souls whom I will never forget while we laid waste to what remained of Los Angeles. Then we went on vacation in glorious Hawaii before we jumped on a space cruiser and went back to Mars. I know, I'm yakking, blah blah blah...I could have been a travel agent...well maybe not.

To make a very, very, very, very, very long story short we've spent the last 287 days, 12 hours, 11 minutes and 55 seconds living the most unbelievable adventure any two people ever shared. We visited an alien base just outside our solar system, met up with a pair of cartoony Magilla Gorillas who called themselves Sears and Roebuck. They were part of the 'good side' of the war called the hyperrealists. Traveled two hundred light years to a Fred base (the Freds were the bad guys, the deconstructionists) and kicked ass. Got sent to the Fred home world where we found it to be devastated by a race called the Newbies (and later the Resusitators). Followed their trail to another world where we ran into 25th century humanity that had been taken over by a viral version of the Newbies, hence had become the Resusitators. And then had our souls removed from our bodies and placed into this place. Believe it or not!

I can't be exactly sure of the timing because the watch I remembered having was broken and with all the interstellar traveling Arlene and I have been doing at near-light speeds, you might be able to round that figure off to about three or four hundred years. Some relativity thing, you can ask the college graduate about it. Numbers just give me a headache.

Anyway, the here and now consists of Arlene and me staring up at the Earth from Deimos. Once again, the Martian moon had decided to get up and visit Earth for awhile. Arlene and I had been here before, but back then our circumstances had been very different. Back then we were by ourselves. Back then we had to build our own little rocket to get back home. Back then we didn't have an army of monsters fighting on _our_ side. It was just then I was beginning to have problems with my memory.

"Fly," Arlene was tapping me on my shoulder while I still stared that the old mud ball which was just out of reach. "If my memory serves, we have to build a rocket."

I knew what she was talking about. I knew it would take us much less time to build it than the last time. I knew it would fit Arlene and me…barely. The problem was that there were almost a hundred alien converts behind us who thought of me (_Me! Of all people!_) as a god and probably would want to come with us. The thing you need to know is that I'm not really a god and taking them with us was not within my power to grant.

"Arlene, I don't think we can rely on our memory anymore. If we happen to be fortunate enough to live out full lives in this computer generated fantasy world, whatever happens is going to be totally different this time around."

"You mean because of them?" she said pointing at the mob behind us. They were busy trying to play military. I'd decided to give my first convert, an imp by the name of Slink Slunk, the rank of Private First Class and had tried to explain to her the duties and responsibilities that were inherent to that charge. It was amusing to watch her try to line up the _soldiers_ for inspection. Arlene nearly fell apart once when Slink had ordered one of our zombie converts to put his brains back in his head after a pinky had bitten a nice chuck out of it. That one ended up getting blown to bits anyway when we went up against the steamdemon. You all remember what that is, right?

"Think about it Arlene. If we take them with us and end up at Salt Lake City again and run into..." I shut my mouth just then when I realized I almost reopened a very deep wound in Arlene. Her face started to turn red. I rephrased myself. "If we end up in Salt Lake City again being tailed by an army of monsters that humanity's resistance forces have no reason to do anything other than attack...well, you get the idea."

Arlene was grim. I knew what she was thinking. We'd spent more time together in the past year or two than most married couples share in a lifetime. She was thinking about Albert. Her husband whom she would never see again. Her husband who, relativistically speaking, was several centuries dead and in the grave. She was thinking that she could start over. To see Albert again and run up to him and throw her arms around him and kiss him and...you know...

She was also thinking about how it simply wouldn't work out like that. Realizing how awkward it would be for both of them. Arlene would be torn apart because she loved a man who didn't even know who she was. Albert, that big beefy Mormon would have his faith ripped to shreds finding out that he didn't really exist! Arlene and me, we were lost in time. We couldn't go back to Salt Lake City. We wouldn't meet Albert and Jill again (no matter how much we both wanted to). We wouldn't stand before the President of the Counsel of Twelve and therefore wouldn't be sent to L.A. where we wouldn't rescue Ken Somethingorother (I never was good with last names, not in this day and age anyway) and make a getaway to Hawaii. It just wouldn't be the same.

"I'm never going to see him again am I?" I could tell she was trying very hard not to cry.

"We're never going to see them again. We can't go back. Even if we didn't take our little army with us, you know they'll never believe our story. Hell they barely let us get away with the one we had last time!"

"I'm not thinking about SLC, Fly. I'm thinking about what we're going to do until the Res-men pull the plug, if they ever pull the plug and if they're still Res-men."

I didn't believe her. No way she wasn't thinking about Albert. Even I was thinking about Albert. And Jill. Albert and Jill. If it wasn't so far-fetched, I might have been about to remember the two of them coming out of the storage locker right then and there and running up to us as if we'd only been gone a week.

"The way I see it, there is simply no way for us to get back to the real world unless we hijack some new bodies or find our own some how." As I said the words, I noticed a glimmer of hope in Arlene's eyes...nah, there was no way we could do that...could we?

I faced Arlene and looked dead in her eyes, trying to figure out what was going on in the college-educated brain of hers. She turned away so I wouldn't be able to see her facial expressions. Then she fell on her ass. Instinct kicked in and I turned to see what had given her the biggest surprise of her life. And then I fell on my ass.

We were facing an enormous spacecraft. It stretched up two hundred feet to the top of the ceiling, just barely touching the glass of the pressure dome. It was sleek and cylindrical reminding me of a much smaller version of Sears and Roebuck's ship. I had never seen a bright almost neon green painted spaceship before though. And Slink was already ushering our army up a giant ramp into the ship. Seeing almost twenty zombies, a few clydes, and two platoons full of imps, or spinies as Arlene called them, marching up a ramp with _almost_ military attitude was enough to surprise even me, and I thought I'd seen everything up until that very moment.

Arlene and I just sat there watching the surreal spectacle. I couldn't even decide which sister to thank for this miracle. So I thanked them all.

Arlene had gotten over her shock quicker than me and was the first of us to speak. "I don't remember this, do you?" Honest to God, she sounded as though she was accused me of some terrible crime as she asked that question.

"Don't look at me!" I stammered, "I didn't do this."

We watched for a few more minutes before Slink came back down the ramp. I couldn't be sure, it was hard to discern emotions from an imp by reading its facial expressions and body language, even one as articulate as Slink, but I would have to guess that she was smiling as though she'd gotten everything she wanted for Christmas. Then she threw us the biggest bombshell I'd seen yet. "Massster hasss given promissse. Ssslink hasss the power. Massster wissshesss to go home?"

I couldn't believe it. It had been an idle promise when I met Slink. I didn't think it would actually be possible. After all, Arlene and I were the only two real souls here. There was no reason to think that the program would actually be able to give itself the power to 'remember' whatever it wanted. Unless the program was so technologically advanced that the AI used to govern the recreation of our memories actually gave birth to a new soul! That was a scary thought. But it gave me an idea. A crazy, off-the-wall, lock-you-in-a-padded-room-and-throw-away-the-key idea, but I didn't think it was impossible. I was beginning to think nothing was. Except for faster-than-light travel, Goddamn it! That still pisses me off.

Arlene leaned over and whispered in my ear after reading my mind. "Uhh Fly," she started. "If Slink has the same kinds of powers that we have, wouldn't she have to be, you know, _alive_? Wouldn't that mean she has a _soul_?" I had already picked up that reasoning, but she found something that I had missed. "And if so, wouldn't that mean others could ascend to that level of consciousness? Enemies even?"

My eyes went wide with realization. If it could happen once, why couldn't it happen again? "You're not thinking..."

"Slink is the smartest of the bunch. If it had to happen to any of them, it would have to happen to her. What about all of those spiderminds on Earth that we remember so fondly? I mean, we learned yesterday that there is absolutely no way to convert one of those."

I remembered. We had tried. Yesterday we met up with the spidermind and ruled like a fat cyber king on Deimos and it was an interesting challenge trying to subdue the monster. Slink had ordered our forces to circle the spidermind after a little bit of technical work that had pumpkins and hell princes fighting and killing each other. That part wasn't so hard. Those two just hated each other as if nothing else in the universe could match their ire.

While our converts distracted the spidermind (which was probably having conniptions trying to figure out what was going on) Arlene started pumping the JP9 rocket fuel into a nice lake beneath it while I managed to jump on top of it. Lying on top of that glass shell with nothing to hang onto while the spidermind jerked like a bull trying to get the cowboy off its back was hard enough. Trying to shout my words of wisdom over its screeching and pounding thousands of 9mm shell holes into the surrounding architecture was just impossible.

It finally managed to buck me to the ground where it tried to stomp on me like a bug. I rolled around on the ground trying avoiding its footfalls and ended up soaking myself in rocket fuel. That was a big problem because I just happened to be surrounding by eighty imps, each of which had the power to turn me into the human torch just by touching me. As a result, Arlene couldn't ignite the fuel and burn the spider down.

There was a brief moment of panic.

The next thing I knew, Arlene had found some sort of rope or wire and was sprinting circles around the spidermind at blinding speed. It took me a moment to realize that she was wrapping the spidermind's legs so that it would trip. I got dizzy watching her work.

Finally, when she ran out of string, she picked up a rock and threw it at that disgusting mound of flesh sitting protected inside that nearly impenetrable shell. _A fat lot of good that's gonna do_, I thought. But it worked. It was just enough to get the things attention without using anything that would start a fire. That girl is so smart.

It shambled toward her but after three steps, the wire caught on the leg joints and the whole thing went down. The glass shell shattered upon impact and the brain inside it exploded and leaked out like spilled honey except it smelled much worse. And that was that. We'd beaten the spidermind again and gained some valuable intel to that end. So far, only zombies, imps, clydes, and fatties could be converted. Our memories of everything else was simply too vivid to change what they were.

I thought about all of the available information for a moment. I thought about what I knew about this computer simulation, the accomplishment Slink had just made, and I toyed with the idea of actually returning to the real world. I looked at my Lance, then I looked at Slink, and then I looked at my Lance again. I decided that this was only a minor setback, but at least I knew what to do now. "Lance," I said, "Get your butt on that ship. I've changed my mind. The only place we can go is Salt Lake City!"


	2. Chapter 2

**2**

I could tell Arlene was not in the best of moods. She'd come to accept the fact that we now had an army backing us up. Not a _human_ army but an army nonetheless. She'd even come to accept the fact that things weren't going to be quite the same this time around no matter how much she wanted it to be. But she seemed very upset with being crammed inside a spacecruiser with a hundred sweaty, smelly, and unsightly monsters as we prepared to make a short hop down to earth from a million feet up. I couldn't figure it out. It's not like we haven't been through worse.

She just sat there in the co-pilot's seat with her arms crossed, glaring at me as if she had laser vision and could burn a hole right through me. One either side of her were zombies reeking of sour-lemons despite hosing them off after running across an Olympic-sized pool halfway through our second cleansing of Deimos. Our spiny forces were located more to the rear so that their snot wouldn't start fires over vital flight controls.

The controls themselves seemed easy enough to figure out. There was a handle that looked like a throttle. There was a little red button that looked like the ignition. And there was a steering wheel that looked like a steering wheel. No flight trajectory for me though. I would be flying this baby manually. I wasn't about to ask Arlene if she could remember a computer assisted flight path for me though. She looked as though she could tear apart a pinky bare-handed.

"So Fly," she started. "Are you going to tell me why you're risking our lives to take a monster army back to SLC after telling me there was no way we could go back there?"

There was no keeping secrets from Arlene. She'd hold me down and poke me silly until I gave in. "Because I think I can get us back to the real world and the real Earth with a real Albert and a real Jill with us." She just looked at me. She made no movements whatsoever. She didn't even blink her eyes. For a moment, I thought my words might have zombified her.

"You're kidding right?" she asked finally.

"No."

Her face went flush. Red filled her cheeks and testosterone with filling her bloodstream. She was waiting for me to tell her what kind of stupid, crazy, un-thought-out plan I had for accomplishing that. In a few moments she'd pop and strangle the answer out of me. Instead, she just put her head in her hands and cried. "That's a really cruel trick to play on someone, Fly."

"I am not playing a trick on you. I'll admit it sounds a little far-fetched. I'll admit that it might not work. But I think there is at least a fifty-fifty chance it will work."

"How?"

"Do you remember the Disney Tower, Arlene?"

See looked up, even more confused than before. "What about it?"

"We never made it to the top, but I remember that on the very top floor, there is a portal that links with the _Disrespect's_ computer core which links with everything else. Once we get there, we can gain control of the ship and everyone aboard. Then we get like five of them to plug themselves into the system and we hijack their bodies. We won't look like ourselves, but we'll be back in the real world."

She thought long and hard about what I had just spilled for her. I thought she was going to give me a lecture about how it absolutely couldn't work, but she surprised me by asking about the little things. "Why five?"

"One for you, one for me, one for Albert, one for Jill, and one for Slink!" I said Slink kind of joyfully. Arlene picked up on it so I didn't have to elaborate. I wanted to take Slink along for the ride.

"Okay," she said. That's it. Nothing else. She just sat there and gazed off into space. I decided to leave her alone and returned my gaze to watching the slowly rotating Earth before us. I did some rough calculations of my own and figured we'd have to wait another hour before we launched to get the ideal conditions for landing _somewhere_ in Utah. I spent that hour trying to remember everything I could about what would happen over the next few days. Unfortunately, there was a deep nagging doubt inside me telling me that I couldn't predict the future no matter how hard I tried. I told that voice to shut up. After what me and Arlene had survived through, I figured we could doing anything we wanted.

* * *

I couldn't understand why he was doing this to me. Fly was supposed to be my best bud. He was supposed to be my senior officer. He was supposed to make the right decisions. But I think he's making a very bad mistake. It's not that I don't want to see Albert again…I'd give anything in the whole universe to see him again. But this Albert won't know who I am. He won't remember what we've been through together. He won't understand why I love him so much.

Maybe Fly thought he was doing the right thing. He was a marine. He was trained to survive. He was built to do all of the things he does. Living in a computer was not how he planned on spending his life. It wasn't real enough for him. He wouldn't get the satisfaction of killing an enemy in the name of humanity if he didn't think it would actually make a difference. I guess his plan had its merits.

I looked over at him. He looked deep in thought while we were waiting for the western seaboard of what was once the United States to loom overhead. I didn't know what he was thinking though. On the battlefield, we usually thought about the same things, except I was the first one to mention it so naturally I gained a reputation with him as a mind-reader. But in situations like this when we are left to our own thoughts, Fly was just too stubborn a man to let someone else get into his head.

Unlike me, Fly believed in a greater power that transcended science and reason. He was raised as a catholic. His years as a schoolboy where spent in a convent with other boys in segregated classes being taught the workings of God's universe by the sisters. I don't really know if he ever really believed in God. Certainly he believed in something that helps make everything go. It might not be God. But he has strong morals that have governed his life as a result of those days. I'm pretty sure that's what made him so different from virtually all the other guys I've ever met. I think that's one of the biggest reasons why we've been best buds for so long.

Before I met Fly I was strongly against religion. Just because of the effect it had on people, my brother being one of those people. I know Fly knows the story about my brother's conversion to the Mormon faith and how it drove him to the brink of self-destruction. I never told him that my brother did in fact decide to commit suicide against his new religion though. And the worst thing about it was we never really knew why he did it. No note. No journal. Nothing to explain it. Just one day I get a letter from my mother who'd received a call informing her that my brother had taken his life. But after I met Fly things changed a little. I learned about how Fly interprets religion, God, and the Universe and even though he's sometimes a paradox, it's shaped him into a good person.

Then there came Albert. Mormon. Like looking at a scar and cutting it open again hoping it'll heal better this time around. Now I have different views on religion. I still don't believe in God. I can't. I understand science and all the knowledge in the world can't prove that it's even possible for such an entity as God to exist. But believing in a faith, or even being a part of one started to have some appeal for me. In my honest opinion, I don't think religion can offer anything more to a person than science and I therefore don't hold it in high regard, but there are worse things to worship than God or faith. The devil comes to mind.

I will admit however that spending time amongst religious people while the world was coming to an end was actually good for me though. For a time I had actually considered learning about the Mormon faith simply because I loved Albert so much. But then we got separated and time became a greater enemy than any monster I'd ever fought. I had resigned myself to the fact that I would never see my Albert again. That I would never wear his ring again. And that I would live out the rest of my life mourning him. And then Fly had to come up with the craziest idea yet.

So here I am sitting in yet another alien spaceship waiting to go back to a place that I never thought I'd ever go back to. All throughout Deimos I tried to avoid having thoughts about what would happen when we got to the roof of the old UAC facility. But now that we're here, I'm filled with anxiety.

Now for the first time I wished I had studied a religion. Any religion. I felt so torn apart and battered and bruised and beaten inside that I probably could use some words of guidance that Fly and Albert had drawn from holy texts.

I felt lost. Fortunately I still had Fly.

"Arlene," Fly started, jolting me from my thoughts. I looked up and saw that the coastline was now in full view, we were ready to go…almost. "How long after I push this little red button does it take for the ship to actually lift off?"

"How the hell should I know?" I blurted back defensively.

"Take a guess assuming that when I push that button, the engine is flooded with whatever fuel we're using, a spark ignites it, and the back pressure creates enough force to escape the gravity of this rock. Come on, you're the one with the college degree."

I was starting to get sick of people using my time in college to take advantage of any situation. I did a few calculations in my head anyway. Assuming we had to seal the ship so that the little beings inside wouldn't die for some stupid reason during the trip (I'm not going to say anything about the abrupt stop at the end) and assuming that Slink would at least have some idea of how long it would take to prepare for a launch when she thought this vessel into existence… "I don't know. Five…maybe ten minutes?" I answered as best I could.

Fly nodded. Probably figuring the same thing. "Okay everybody, hang on to something. Launch is T-minus six minutes!" he shouted back to the mob. One minute to push the button and five to take-off I guessed.

They all started to make noise and get excited. I glanced back and saw Slink trying to fight her way through the crowd, shouting something but it was too noisy to hear was she was saying. Fly was strapping himself down and I followed suit. He started counting on his fingers as if he was going through some sort of makeshift pre-flight checklist. He almost looked as though he belonged in that chair piloting alien rockets.

I heard Slink shouting again but I still couldn't make out what she was saying. I strained to hear just in case it was important. It sounded like, "Not sssix time. Not…something…now." I tried turning to see if I could read her lips but I would have to unstrap myself. "Pusssh…something…meansss now." _Oh my God!_ Was she saying it would launch _immediately_?

"Fly!" I screamed, but it was too late. He had pushed the button. Without warning, the rockets fired and the pressure dome cracked. Six g's pressed down against me as the dome shattered and the escaping air blew us violently toward Earth, even as we started ramping up speed. I was pressed against my seat barely able to blink. Fly may not like zero-g, but I preferred it to this.

The engines were loud, but not as loud as our homemade rocket. I could still hear things. I could hear the mob growling behind me, probably a little upset for having been plastered to the rear bulkhead by the g-forces and nothing to hold on to. I could hear Fly bitching and complaining beside me about something. I didn't have to be a mind-reader to make a guess. For a moment, I thought I heard somebody laughing at me.

I could hear alright. I just couldn't see very well. The g-forces were building up and the Earth was getting bigger real quick. Then it dawned on me; we're going too fast! "Fly!" I screamed again.

He was busy trying to keep his hands on the steering wheel, turning it so that we'd come into the Earth's atmosphere at a comfortable angle instead of a deadly head-on type re-entry.

"Too fast Fly!" I shouted.

He suddenly looked like a kid who had just been scolded. "Not my fault! Took off instantly!"

_What a dummy!_ He thought I was blaming him for taking off without warning. "No. Too fast. Throttle down!"

Neurons fired in his brain as my words reached him and a higher level of intelligence finally kicked in. He throttled down and the acceleration lessened. I could actually breathe again. So much for his pre-flight checklist. He had forgotten to check to make sure the throttle setting was at minimum. I'm surprised we didn't stall the thing. Who starts a racecar in fifth gear anyway?

We had a nice big window in front of us. I only hoped that Slink thought of something that wouldn't break or melt from the extreme temperatures we were about to face with smacking into Earth's atmosphere. We got closer and I suddenly felt gravity pulling me forward. We'd managed to avoid zero-g altogether somehow. Fly would be happy about that.

A moment later, he brought the throttle down to zero. I was afraid that we were going to stall, but then I realized that's what he wanted to do. We didn't need any extra speed going in. Watching the clouds whiz by, I figured we were doing better than two thousand kilometers per hour. He must have figured that Earth's gravity could to the part of bringing us down and the only thing he'd have to do is provide a landing that wouldn't kill us. Good thinking Fly!

It had worked so far…as a matter of fact, just about _everything_ he had done had worked so far so I didn't really have any good reason to doubt him. When he zeroed the throttle the engines died, but it didn't get any quieter. We hit the atmosphere at almost the same instant and began our four-minute hell ride toward the surface.

I'll admit that Fly was a much better pilot this time around. We were still being tossed around like sardines in a tin can rolling down the side of a mountain, but he managed for the most part to keep us level with the horizon.

Sweat began beading down my face. I looked over and saw a waterfall coming off of Fly. The cabin temp was rising, but there was nothing we could do about that. Who knows what Slink had in mind when she thought up this thing. It didn't seem to get _really_ hot but we didn't really have time to think about that before fireworks started going off in front of us. Bright explosions of red light began peppering our flight path. Some of them were unpleasantly close and gave us little jolts. It was only then that I realized someone or something was shooting at us!

_Have faith, Arlene_, I said to myself. It didn't help though. Pictures of us getting splattered by a lucky shot were going through my mind. It was not a good thought to have since some of our thoughts were capable of becoming reality.

After what seemed like an eternity, the flares stopped and the ground appeared. We'd been lucky yet again. Not one shot had hit us. But now the ground was rushing up really fast.

I braced myself for the impact noticing that we were skimming over a desert. Fly had managed to narrow us down the appropriate region. Way ahead in the distance, I could see the mountains just beyond the salt flats of Utah. I almost screamed for joy as we hit the very same sand we'd hit last time.

The _first_ impact was the hardest. Having burned up only half of our speed with our reentry, we hit the sand at almost a thousand kilometers an hour, completely crushed the bottom side of our rocket and then skipped off like a flat stone jumping across a calm lake. We hit again, and again, and again. I thought the stomach-churning bounces would never end. Finally, we slammed to a stop at the very edge of the flats where the sand and salt had given way to rock and dirt.

I sat there for a moment making sure I was still alive in a relative sense. I counted my limbs, checked for missing teeth, took my pulse and glanced over at Fly who definitely had the shaken-not-stirred look down pat. He looked at me and gave me a thumbs up. I smiled and passed out.


End file.
